A 10 and 18 MP Pentax....very nice...

In article ,
Paul Mitchum wrote:
Marc Sabatella wrote:

I do think that my 6mp DL is too soft and doesn't get pictures as sharp
as the Canon. I swear that it just seems like this.

It is indeed a commonly observed fact that Pentax does not apply much
sharpening to its JPG files, compared to most others. The standard advice
is to shoot RAW and do the sharpening in post processing, if you like that
kind of sharpening applied.

The other thing is that the kit lens just ain't that great. Ya know?

As it happens, the kit lens suppied with the Pentax DSLRs is a great deal
better than the kit lens supplied with some other brands. It obviously
isn't going to compare with the best pro glass, but for 1/10 the price it
does a pretty good job.

The Pentax DSLRs *on the default settings* don't do as much in-camera
sharpening or saturation boosting as some other entry-level models, which
leads to complaints of softness or lack of vivid colours (although the
latest incarnation, the K100D, appears to have increased the saturation).
It's easy enough to adjust the settings to increase the camera defaults,
although sharpening is really best done *after* resizing for printing.

Paul Mitchum wrote:

Marc Sabatella wrote:


I do think that my 6mp DL is too soft and doesn't get pictures as sharp
as the Canon. I swear that it just seems like this.

It is indeed a commonly observed fact that Pentax does not apply much
sharpening to its JPG files, compared to most others. The standard advice
is to shoot RAW and do the sharpening in post processing, if you like that
kind of sharpening applied.


The other thing is that the kit lens just ain't that great. Ya know?

It's adequate. Pentax still does fairly good optics.

--

These are my views. If you've got a problem with it, you can blame it on
me, but this is what I think. I am not the official spokes-person for
any Government, Commercial or Educational institution.

John

I do think that my 6mp DL is too soft and doesn't get pictures as
sharp
as the Canon. I swear that it just seems like this.

It is indeed a commonly observed fact that Pentax does not apply much
sharpening to its JPG files, compared to most others. The standard
advice
is to shoot RAW and do the sharpening in post processing, if you like
that
kind of sharpening applied.

The other thing is that the kit lens just ain't that great. Ya know?

Note the original poster was comparing to the Canon, presumably with its
kit lens. And the Pentax kit lens is pretty much universally considered
much better than the Canon. So the lens is not the issue in this
particular comparison - it really is the sharpening. Of course,
compared to a higher end lens on *either* camera, it is true that
neither kit lens will do as well.

---------------
Marc Sabatella


Music, art, & educational materials
Featuring "A Jazz Improvisation Primer"
http://www.outsideshore.com/

"Marc Sabatella" wrote in news:87-
:

I do think
that my 6mp DL is too soft and doesn't get pictures as sharp as the
Canon.
I swear that it just seems like this.

It is indeed a commonly observed fact that Pentax does not apply much
sharpening to its JPG files, compared to most others. The standard
advice is to shoot RAW and do the sharpening in post processing, if you
like that kind of sharpening applied.

---------------
Marc Sabatella


Music, art, & educational materials
Featuring "A Jazz Improvisation Primer"
http://www.outsideshore.com/




I shoot in RAW. I'm still not quite satisified.

--
---
William O'Hara
www.N1ey.com - Amateur Radio and Railfan Blog
www.yahoogroups.com/group/illinoiscentral - premier discussion list
ICRR

The Pentax DSLRs *on the default settings* don't do as much in-camera
sharpening or saturation boosting as some other entry-level models,
which leads to complaints of softness or lack of vivid colours
(although the latest incarnation, the K100D, appears to have increased
the saturation). It's easy enough to adjust the settings to increase
the camera defaults, although sharpening is really best done *after*
resizing for printing.


I'm not shooting at total default settings. There is something
to be said about a poor design. The big complaint about how long it
takes to unload the buffer and how the small the buffer is.

--
---
William O'Hara
www.N1ey.com - Amateur Radio and Railfan Blog
www.yahoogroups.com/group/illinoiscentral - premier discussion list
ICRR

There is something
to be said about a poor design. The big complaint about how long it
takes to unload the buffer and how the small the buffer is.

Well, I wouldn't call that "poor design" as much as "cost cutting", and
pretty much all cameras in this price range perform similarly in this
respect. But in any case, this is indeed one of things that I expect
*should* make even a 6 MP K10D appealing to many photographers if they'd
let go of obsession over pixel count.

---------------
Marc Sabatella


Music, art, & educational materials
Featuring "A Jazz Improvisation Primer"
http://www.outsideshore.com/

I shoot in RAW. I'm still not quite satisified.

This is a bit more surprising, then. What RAW processing program do you
use, and what kinds of sharpening controls does it give?

---------------
Marc Sabatella


Music, art, & educational materials
Featuring "A Jazz Improvisation Primer"
http://www.outsideshore.com/

"Marc Sabatella" wrote in news:Ub-
:

I shoot in RAW. I'm still not quite satisified.

This is a bit more surprising, then. What RAW processing program do you
use, and what kinds of sharpening controls does it give?

The camera program on XP.

--
---
William O'Hara
www.N1ey.com - Amateur Radio and Railfan Blog
www.yahoogroups.com/group/illinoiscentral - premier discussion list
ICRR

In article 42,
William O'Hara wrote:
"Marc Sabatella" wrote in news:Ub-
:

I shoot in RAW. I'm still not quite satisified.

This is a bit more surprising, then. What RAW processing program do you
use, and what kinds of sharpening controls does it give?

The camera program on XP.

Assuming that "the camera program" refers to the software supplied
with the camera (aka Pentax Photo Laboratory), then I'm not surprised.

This is just a (not particularly good) RAW converter, with basically
no sharpening controls whatsoever; there is no sharpening being done.

You really need to get some kind of image editor.

John Francis wrote:

In article 42,
William O'Hara wrote:
"Marc Sabatella" wrote in news:Ub-
:

I shoot in RAW. I'm still not quite satisified.

This is a bit more surprising, then. What RAW processing program do you
use, and what kinds of sharpening controls does it give?

The camera program on XP.

Assuming that "the camera program" refers to the software supplied
with the camera (aka Pentax Photo Laboratory), then I'm not surprised.

This is just a (not particularly good) RAW converter, with basically
no sharpening controls whatsoever; there is no sharpening being done.

You really need to get some kind of image editor.

Version 3 of Pentax Photo Lab is much improved over previous versions.
It's basically Silkypix re-wrapped to look like the old software. It's a
free update from Pentax.

It's a shame that it's so slow and cumbersome to use (on a Mac at
least), but the conversion is better.